"THE ABRAHAMIC FAITHS? CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY IN CHRISTIAN AND

ISLAMIC DOCTRINE" by Adam Dodds

Abstract

The term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ and its cognates, prominent in inter-faith and political conversations,

has now entered, largely uncritically, into academic discourse. It is not clearly defined and is used by

scholars in different and potentially misleading ways. Thus far the term has evaded theological

critique; this paper is a contribution to towards just such a critique.

The ‘Abrahamic faiths’ are Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but, this paper shall focus on

Christianity and Islam. I propose to critique the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ by evaluating three different

‘levels of usage’ employed by scholars of religion.

This evaluation shall first involve examining Christian and Islamic theological continuity. Then, I

shall investigate Christian and Islamic theological dissimilarity concerning four core Christian

doctrines. My objective is to show that the continuity and discontinuity of Christian and Islamic

doctrine requires careful consideration. I conclude with a study of the term ‘Abrahamic faith’ itself,

noting its problematic nature. I conclude with some constructive reflections for inter-faith dialogue.

Key words: Abrahamic faiths, Christianity, Islam, theological continuity and discontinuity, inter-

faith dialogue.

A revised article based on an earlier article of the same title published with the Evangelical

Quarterly. Made freely available with the permission from Paternoster Publishing, the publisher of

Evangelical Quarterly. http://www.paternosterperiodicals.co.uk/evangelical-quarterly

http://www.paternosterperiodicals.co.uk/evangelical-quarterly

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I. Introduction

‘Abrahamic faiths’ or ‘religions of Abraham’ is a popular designation for Judaism, Christianity, and

Islam, emphasising their common heritage. It denotes a ‘family likeness’ and a certain commonality

in theology between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For these reasons it is a popular term in inter-

faith dialogue, where the agenda is often, for good reasons, to stress the continuity between religions

whilst overlooking the sometimes significant discontinuity.1 The term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is enjoying

widespread and often indiscriminate use amongst newspaper columnists, politicians, academics, and

religious leaders alike. There are now various websites devoted to the Abrahamic faiths including

one based at Cambridge University.2 Abrahamic faiths groups have started to spring up across the

Western world including in my own university of Otago, New Zealand. Such groups have as their

aims promoting education and understanding of other religions, mutual respect and tolerance, and

cooperation toward common goals. Although necessary and important in religiously pluralist

societies, my concern is not with these important instances of inter-faith dialogue, but of what I argue

to be the unexamined use of the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ or the ‘religions of Abraham’.3 It is

remarkable that the term has yet to be subjected to theological scrutiny in published scholarly work.

This, then, is the purpose of the paper.

What exactly does ‘Abrahamic faiths’ mean? Is it simply a useful designation for the three religions

that trace lineage to the patriarch/prophet Abraham and which have a certain ‘family likeness’, or is

it claiming something more; namely, that the three religions are expressions of the same faith and

worship the same God? In other words, what amount of theological weight can the term ‘Abrahamic

faiths’ bear?

My overall aim is to evaluate what ‘Abrahamic faiths’ might mean and therefore ascertain the

suitability of the term and to provide guidelines should the term be used. Testing the viability of

‘Abrahamic faiths’ across three enormous religious traditions is simply too large a task requiring

book-length attention. Accordingly, for reasons of space and expertise, this paper shall focus on

Christianity and Islam. In Section II I shall examine three recent ‘levels’ of scholarly uses of

‘Abrahamic faiths’ which place different theological weight on the term. In Section III I shall assess

the strengths of the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ considering areas of general theological continuity

between Christianity and Islam. In Section IV I shall sharpen the focus of the inquiry by comparing

Christian and Muslim doctrine vis-à-vis four central Christian4 dogmas: (1) the person of Jesus

Christ; (2) the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ; (3) the Bible; and (4) the Triune God.

This should yield significant data regarding the doctrinal continuity and discontinuity of Christianity

and Islam. In Section V I shall discuss the suitability of the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ in the light of

Sections III and IV of this study, briefly discussing the related subject of the identity of the God of

Christianity and Islam. Finally, in Section VI I shall look at the implications of this study for

Christian-Muslim inter-faith dialogue, drawing particularly on W. T. Dickens’ article ‘Frank

1 Three works that prioritise continuity over discontinuity are K-J. Kuschel, Abraham: A Symbol of Hope for Jews,

Christians and Muslims (London: SCM Press, 1995); L. J. Swidler (Ed.), Death or Dialogue? From the Age of

Monologue to the Age of Dialogue (London: SCM Press, 1990); J. Hick and P. F. Knitter (Eds.) The Myth of Christian

Uniqueness (London: SCM Press, 1987). 2 http://www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk/ 3 For the purposes of this paper I understand these terms ‘Abrahamic faiths’, ‘Abrahamic religions’, the ‘religions of

Abraham’ and ‘Abrahamic traditions’ as synonyms. For consistency and clarity my practise will be to only use

‘Abrahamic faiths’ except where following the citation of specific sources. 4 J. E. L. Newbigin said, ‘We cannot avoid speaking of any subject from a certain standpoint. There is not available to us

a, standpoint which is above all standpoints.’ ‘The Finality of Christ within a Plurality of Faiths’, Dialogue 24 (1972), 15.

I have no doubt of the benefits of conducting a similar investigation from an Islamic perspective, indeed I touch on this

myself, but for reasons of faith commitment and proficiency my distinctive contribution is primarily from a Christian

theological perspective.

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Conversations: Promoting Peace among the Abrahamic Traditions through Interreligious Dialogue’.5

The term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ can and should be evaluated from many other perspectives but this

paper shall confine itself to the task already stated.

II. Scholarly use of the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’

I shall proceed by examining three recent ‘levels’ of uses of the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ in academic

discourse that use the term in a progressively stronger sense. First, in his recent article ‘Frank

Conversations’ Dickens uses the term ‘Abrahamic traditions’ in the first sentence, and from his third

sentence it is clear he is referring to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Dickens attempts no further

definition or clarification throughout the article. In this first level and most basic usage Dickens

appears to use the term as a convenient shorthand way of referring to Judaism, Christianity and

Islam. Dickens asks no more of the term than this. His use of the term is primarily functional rather

than theological.

Second, John Polkinghorne in his book Belief in God in an Age of Science first uses the term in the

context of saying that future scientific and theological dialogue ‘must broaden beyond the

Abrahamic faiths to include all religious traditions.’6 Here Polkinghorne appears to be using the term

much as Dickens had, as convenient shorthand for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Later in his book

Polkinghorne writes, ‘The Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam – share a number of

common features stemming from their interlaced histories. They are surely seeking to speak of the

same God, even though they make many different assertions about the divine nature.’ 7 Here

Polkinghorne uses the term in a second-level and more specialised sense, conveying historical and

theological commonality, though the extent of this commonality is carefully nuanced and open-

ended. Reference is also made to Jews, Christians and Muslims ‘seeking to speak of the same God’.

Polkinghorne immediately acknowledges the discontinuities in the three religions’ respective

doctrines of God, yet the issue is still raised indirectly; do Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the

same God? Polkinghorne clearly makes no attempt to address this question as his book does not

concern the theology of religions and his references to ‘Abrahamic faiths’ are incidental. This, I

contend, is symptomatic of the term’s widespread and undefined usage and of its becoming part of

acceptable academic vocabulary.

Additionally, the thirty-eight Muslim scholars, representing all eight schools of Islamic thought and

jurisprudence, who wrote the ‘Open Letter To His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’ in response to the

Pope’s controversial lecture at the University of Regensburg, Germany, on September 12th 2006 use

‘Abrahamic faiths’ in this second-level sense. Speaking in the context of the importance of Christian-

Muslim inter-faith dialogue they write that they ‘hope to continue to build peaceful and friendly

relationships based upon mutual respect, justice, and what is common in essence in our shared

Abrahamic tradition, particularly “the two greatest commandments” in Mark 12:29-31…’8 Once

again, ‘Abrahamic faiths’ here is used in a second-level sense to carry some unspecified amount of

historical and theological weight, though differences are also acknowledged. Furthermore, the

inclusion of the term in an open letter signed by thirty-eight senior Muslim scholars from twenty-five

different European, African, Middle-Eastern Asian and North American countries demonstrates the

increasing prevalence of the term, particularly in Muslim-Christian dialogue.

Numerous instances of a third-level use of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ can be found in the papers presented

in the 1979 Trialogue of the Abrahamic Faiths meetings held at the American Academy of Religion

annual conference. Mahmud ‘Awan says, ‘as adherents of their faiths, Jews, Christians and Muslims

5 JRE 34 no. 3 (2006), 397-420. 6 J. Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science (The Terry Lectures; New York: Yale University Press, 1998), xiii. 7 Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science, 111. 8 http://www.islamicamagazine.com/letter/index.html, 4, accessed 9 October 2007.

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stand under one and the same God Whom they all acknowledge. This, after all, is the foundation of

the Abrahamic faith to which they subscribe.’9 Seymour Siegel says, ‘Judaism, Christianity, and

Islam. They all worship the same God; revere the same historical personalities; and claim the same

revelation.’10 In the keynote address for those historic meetings Sergio Cardinal Pignedoli says,

‘these religions, united as they are in their acceptance of Abrahamic faith’, and ‘the corner-stone of

our religious encounter to be Abrahamic faith in the One God.’11 In making the significant transition

between ‘Abrahamic faiths’ – plural – to ‘Abrahamic faith’ – singular, Pignedoli & ‘Awan have

made explicit their belief, with Siegel, that to some extent Jews, Christians and Muslims share the

same faith and therefore worship the same God. Pignedoli explains ‘the faith of Abraham’ as

follows:

we profess one God, a God who is personal, the Creator of the world, provident, active in

history but separated from it by an infinite gulf, the judge of men’s actions, and who has

spoken to men through the prophets. The Sacred Books and the traditions of our three

religions admit no shadow of doubt on this fundamental point. This basic unity of faith is

of such importance that it allows us to consider our differences with serenity and with a

sense of perspective: it does not mean that we minimize these differences and still less

that we renounce the points that separate us. But it does mean that we can speak together

in an atmosphere of understanding and friendship, because we are all “believers in the

same God”!12

This third usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ asserts such a degree of continuity that the plural is removed

so that there is one Abrahamic faith, or faith of Abraham, expressed through three historic

communities. Here ‘Abrahamic faiths’ connotes a unity of faith to the extent that it connotes belief in

the same God. One ought to be grateful to the scholars of that 1979 Trialogue of the Abrahamic

Faiths for attempting a clear definition of the term, even if its contents is not undisputed.

Although not specifically using the term, Douglas Pratt’s theology lends support to this third-level

usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ in viewing predominant continuity between Christianity and Islam.

Whilst aware of historical differences he advises that instead one ought to focus on the reality of the

one and only God who authors both biblical and qur’anic revelation, since ‘The source of revelation

is universal… and the message of God, is eternal.’13 For Pratt revelation is the activity of God,

therefore ‘Allah [which he uses synonymously with God] is the author of the message. Jesus and

Mohammad are different historic personalities, who lived in different times and different situations,

and who were – and are still – differently understood; yet they are equally bearers of revelation,

equally messengers of God.’14

To recap, a first-level usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is simply shorthand for Judaism, Christianity and

Islam, nothing more. The second-level usage acknowledges significant theological and historical

continuity and discontinuity between Christianity and Islam. A third-level usage goes distinctly

further; it identifies Christian and Islamic revelation as both from the one true God therefore

asserting substantial continuity between these two faiths. Having briefly outlined three levels of uses

of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ we shall proceed to assess the strengths of the term.

9 M. ‘Awan, ’The Faith Community and World Order in the Perspective of Islam’ in I. R. al Faruqi (Ed.) Trialogue of the

Abrahamic Faiths, Papers Presented to the Islamic Studies Group of American Academy of Religion, 1995, 87. 10 S. Siegel, ‘The Nation State and Social Order in the Perspective of Judaism’ in al Faruqi (Ed.) Trialogue of the

Abrahamic Faiths, 38. 11 Cardinal S. Pignedoli, ‘The Catholic Church and the Jewish and Muslim Faiths: Trialogue of the Three Abrahamic

Faiths’ in al Faruqi (Ed.) Trialogue of the Abrahamic Faiths, 1, 4. 12 Pignedoli, ‘The Catholic Church’, 2. 13 D. Pratt, ‘Islam: A Challenge to Christianity’, 2-9, Stimulus: The New Zealand Journal of Christian Thought and

Practice Vol. 15 Issue 2 (May 2007, Masterton: Stimulus), 8. 14 Pratt, ‘Islam’, 8.

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III. General theological continuity between Christianity and Islam

Prima facie, Jews, Christians and Muslims all look to the patriarch/prophet Abraham as one of the

greatest models of faith. Furthermore, Jews, Christians and Muslims all – to some extent – claim

lineal descent from Abraham. Jews state that they descend from Abraham through his son Isaac,

whose son Jacob fathered the twelve tribes of Israel. In the first chapter of the New Testament

Matthew traces Jesus’ ancestry back to Abraham; and the twelve apostles, being Jewish, all likewise

profess to descend from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. Muslims maintain Abraham’s son

Ishmael fathered twelve sons from whom descended the peoples of Arabia, including the Prophet

Muhammad.15 Interestingly however, the three religions do not all claim lineage from Abraham in

the same way. Jews, with the exception of Gentile converts to Judaism, all claim to descend

physically from Abraham,16 but this is not so for Christians and Muslims. As the majority of

Christians are not of Jewish ancestry, and most Muslims are not ethnically Arab, Abraham’s primary

role for these religions is as an example of godly faith, particularly in relation to his rejection of the

polytheism of his kin and culture, and his obedience to the divine command.17 This likewise remains

true for Judaism.

In briefly recounting the prominence of Abraham in the three religious traditions that claim to be his

heirs, one can immediately see both elements of continuity and discontinuity between these religions.

Emphasising the former first, ‘Abrahamic faiths’ clearly connotes some measure of religious

commonality and is used in the taxonomy of religions. For scholars of religion such as Lesslie

Newbigin,

It is customary to make a sharp distinction between historical religions such as Judaism,

Christianity and Islam which depend crucially on events in the past which can be

specified as to date and place, and religions such as those which have their origins in the

Indian subcontinent and which – while revering teachers in the past – depend not on the

authority of these founding teachers, such as Gautama or Guru Nanak, but on what is

held to be accessible to every human being apart from reference to any particular events

in the past.18

Whilst conceding that all religions have historical traditions Newbigin nevertheless upholds the

distinction as real. He explains,

The truths which Buddhism teaches would (as Buddhists understand them) be true

whether or not Gautama had discovered and promulgated them. But the whole of

Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death, and

resurrection of Jesus were not events in real history but stories told to illustrate truths

which are valid apart from these happenings.19

15 F. E. Peters questions this claim: ‘Muhammad strongly emphasized that the Islam being promulgated in the Quran was

nothing other than the “religion of Abraham” and that the earlier activity of Abraham – and Ishmael – in Mecca was

crucial to this enterprise. But nowhere is it suggested or even hinted that Muhammad was aware that Ishmael was widely

recognized elsewhere as the Arabs’ ancestor. Nor is it ever asserted that Islam’s claim to be the new version of the true

faith was based on the Arabs’ blood descent from Abraham through Ishmael, as the Jews’ was by their descent through

Isaac and Jacob. Muslims are not, in any event, the “Children of Ishmael.”’ The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and

Muslims in Conflict and Competition: Vol. 1 – The Peoples of God (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 7

emphasis original. 16 In addition to lineal descent Jews are physically connected to Abraham through the ritual of circumcision known as

berith Avraham, the covenant of Abraham. 17 There are other important connections with Abraham, such as cult of the Ka’ba and the rituals surrounding the Hajj,

but these lie beyond the scope of this paper. 18 J. E. L. Newbigin, The Gospel In a Pluralist Society (London: SPCK, 1989), 66. 19 Newbigin, The Gospel In a Pluralist Society, 66. Keith Ward distinguishes between Semitic religion (Ward’s preferred

term analogous to ‘Abrahamic faiths’) with its notions of God the Creator and of human beings living unique lives, with

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This is equally true for Islam.

This historical grounding of Christianity and Islam leads to continuity in a number of ways, two of

which will be mentioned. First, both Christianity and Islam share an ideology of oneness; that is,

they hold to an ideal that the total corpus of believers should express their faith in a single historic

community. In Islam it is the idea of the Ummah, which refers to the community originally formed in

Medina but now includes all Muslims worldwide. Christians have an idea of a single united

community using such terms as ‘the Body of Christ’ or the Church (ekklesia). Although for both

religions this ideal has a more fractured historic existence, nevertheless the ideal remains powerful.20

Second, Christianity and Islam both share the conviction that ‘… there is one God and… all must

finally come under his rule…’,21 not in an otherworldly sense but concretely in time and space. This

has quite controversial implications. Speaking of the Church Newbigin observes how in Britain

Muslims have raised ‘very sharp questions… [concerning] our cosy co-habitation with the secular

society: Do you believe that God is Lord over the public life of society, its economics, its politics, its

culture? Or do you believe that his rule is limited to the Church and the home?’22 Christians and

Muslims are committed to God’s rule in the actual historical process which brings them into a direct

collision-course with modern secularism with its canon of the privatisation of religion. Hence

Christian leaders such as Lesslie Newbigin see ‘Islam and Christianity as being in a sense partners in

the coming century as from our different standpoints we wrestle with the future of Western culture.’23

Although ‘To summarise is necessarily to do some injustice…’24 it is still worthwhile to attempt a

summary of the doctrinal commonality of Christianity and Islam. Necessarily this is indicative not

definitive. Both religions affirm one personal eternal God who created a contingent universe, who

providentially rules history, who sends prophetic and angelic messengers and who reveals the divine

will through inspired Scriptures. Both religions affirm that obedience to this creator God is to be

lived out historically, and both religions affirm that one day God will unilaterally intervene in human

history on the day of judgement and will determine for all humanity their eternal destinies of heaven

or hell based upon a person’s beliefs and actions. This theological continuity between Christianity

and Islam is profound, especially given that the great religions of Eastern Asia, the dominant schools

of Greek philosophy, modernity and post-modernity, in short almost all other religious and

philosophical systems, cannot claim anything close to this level of doctrinal continuity.

With this in mind it seems entirely reasonable to understand the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ as meaning

a certain family likeness between Christianity and Islam. Their overall view of reality is extremely

similar in the face of the aforementioned principal alternative worldviews. This justifies the use of

‘Abrahamic faiths’ in the study of religion both as shorthand for Christianity and Islam – level one –

and as conveying some amount of theological continuity – level two. At this stage a level-three usage

of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ seems plausible given the significant continuity surveyed, though further

investigation is required.

I have briefly sketched the significant continuity between Christianity and Islam and so it is proper to

now turn to an examination of doctrinal discontinuity. I shall critically evaluate the third-level usage

of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ by assessing whether Christians and Muslims share ‘a basic unity of faith’ and

Indian religion with its notions of moral entail (karma) and cosmic law (dharma) and of human beings undergoing a

cycle of rebirth. Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 331. 20 Pratt, ‘Islam’, 3. 21 J. E. L. Newbigin, Living Hope in a Changing World (London: Alpha International, 2003), 79. 22 J. E. L. Newbigin, The Gospel in Today’s Global City (Birmingham: Selly Oak Colleges, 1997), 5. 23 J. E. L. Newbigin, ‘Face to Face with Ultimate Reality’, Third Way 17 (March 1998), no page numbers. 24 J. E. L. Newbigin, Christian Freedom in the Modern World (London: SCM Press, 1937), 15. This summary paragraph

is necessarily generalised and does not attempt to give voice to important minority opinions and subtle nuances of the

myriad different traditions and schools of thought in Christianity and Islam.

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‘claim the same revelation’ by comparing Christian and Muslim doctrine vis-à-vis four central

Christian dogmas: (1) the person of Jesus Christ; (2) the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ;

(3) the Bible; and (4) the Triune God.

IV. Specific theological continuity and discontinuity

between Christianity and Islam

1. The person of Jesus Christ

‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity!’25

‘…the Christians say, ‘The Messiah is the Son of God.’ That is the utterance of their mouths,

conforming with the unbelievers before them. God assail them! How they are perverted!’26

The Bible recognises a diachronic progression of divine revelation culminating in the person of Jesus

Christ. The letter to the Hebrews says – ‘Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various

ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of

all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact

imprint of God’s very being…’27 The New Testament refers to Jesus as ‘in the form of God’, ‘the

image of the invisible God’, ‘the Word was God… the Word was made flesh’. On one occasion

Jesus said, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ The New Testament says that in Jesus ‘all the

fullness of God was pleased to dwell’. He is ‘Immanuel, God with us’.28

The Christian claim is that in Jesus Christ people encounter the holy and merciful God in persona.

The Nicene Creed defines the faith of the Christian church worldwide at the heart of which is the

affirmation that Jesus Christ is ‘the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God,

light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being [homoousion] with the

Father, through him all things were made…’ Alan Torrance explains that the word homoousion

affirms ‘that the reality of God himself is present with us and for us in Christ.’29 Torrance observes

that this affirmation is decisive for theological epistemology and soteriology, which we shall look at

in turn.30

The heart of the Christian gospel is that ‘God himself is the content of his revelation…’31 Jesus

Christ mediated knowledge of God because He is Immanuel, God with us. This is because, as Emil

Brunner argues, God is subject, person, and therefore cannot perfectly reveal Godself except in

personal presence. For Christians, revelation does not primarily entail propositional knowledge

about God, but the establishment of a personal relationship,32 thus ‘When we speak of God’s self-

revelation, we are certainly speaking of more than information and even invitation: we are speaking

of reconciliation, of atonement, of salvation.’33 The homoousion, the incarnation of the Son of God,

constitutes the hinge between God and humanity. Without it, all ‘God-talk’ loses its foundation and

can only disintegrate into unwarranted projections onto the transcendent. T. F. Torrance explains,

25 From the Christmas hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Charles Wesley, http://www.hymnsite.com/ accessed August

15, 2006. 26 Surah 9:30. Cf. Surah 5:116-7 – ‘And when God said, “O Jesus son of Mary, didst thou say unto men, “Take me and

my mother as gods, apart from God”?” He said, “To Thee be the glory! It is not mine to say what I have no right to.”’ 27 Heb. 1:1-3, emphasis added. 28 Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15; John 1:1, 14; John 14:9; Col. 1:19; Matt. 1:23. 29 A. J. Torrance, ‘Jesus in Christian Doctrine’ in Markus Bockmuehl (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jesus

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 203. 30 In what follows I am indebted to A. Torrance’s discussion. 31 T. F. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives: Towards Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1994), 9. 32 E. Brunner, The Scandal of Christianity: The Robertson Lectures (London: SCM Press, 1951), 47. 33 J. E. L. Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1995), 67-68.

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Without that ontic unity there is no Mediator between God and man and the identity of

Jesus Christ has nothing to do with any self-giving or self-revealing on the part of the

eternal God, in which event the whole structure not only of the Creed but of the Gospel

itself would disintegrate and collapse.34

For there to be such a concept as divine revelation God must reveal Godself.

Concerning the soteriological implications of the homoousion, Pannenberg explains that, ‘The

divinity of Jesus and his freeing and redeeming significance for us are related in the closest possible

way.’35 Sin is viewed as a violation of the Creator and his purposes by his creatures. Hence, to the

extent that sin is sin against God, and not merely some problem internal to creation, only God can be

the Agent of reconciliation and forgiveness.36 Only the Creator can overcome the revolt and redeem

humanity.

According to Torrance, Irenaeus of Lyons emphasised that “in Jesus, God the Son took what was

ours (namely, our alienated and confused condition) and healed it so that we might have what is his

(the communion with God which was God’s creative purpose for humanity from the very

beginning).” Torrance continues, ‘This insistence, conceived as a summary of the gospel, was central

to patristic orthodoxy.’37 In summary, if Jesus Christ is not fully divine then reconciliation is merely

an action between creatures, no reconciliation with God has taken place and we are still in our sins.

‘That is why Jesus’ acts are saving acts, for they are divine acts.’38

Conversely, although Muslims reveres Jesus as a prophet, affirm the virgin birth and the second-

coming, and acknowledge that he was God’s messenger, they are resounding in their rejection of the

divinity of Christ. Al-Hahi states that, ‘All forms of God-incarnate philosophies are excluded by

Islam’s monotheism...’39 Explaining the Islamic understanding of revelation Isma‘il al-Faruqi says:

God does not reveal Himself… to anyone in any way. God reveals only His will… This

is God’s will and that is all we have – and we have it in perfection in the Qur’an…

Christians talk about the revelation of God Himself – by God and for God – but that is

the great difference between Christianity and Islam. God is transcendent, and once you

talk about self-revelation you have hierophany and immanence, and then the

transcendence of God is compromised. You may not have complete transcendence and

self-revelation at the same time.40

Anglican Bishop and Islamicist Michael Nazir-Ali says that Islam believes in the hiddenness of God

and ‘in the impossibility of ever knowing Him.’41 The different concepts of divine revelation could

not be more stark. Jesus claimed, ‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father.’42 Al-Bukhari records

the hadith narrated by Masruq, ‘Aisha said, “If anyone tells you that Muhammad has seen his Lord,

he is a liar, for Allah says: ‘No vision can grasp Him.’” (6.103) And if anyone tells you that

Muhammad has seen the Unseen, he is a liar, for Allah says: “None has the knowledge of the Unseen

34 T. F. Torrance, ‘Introduction’ in T. F. Torrance (Ed.), The Incarnation: Ecumenical Studies in the Nicene-

Constantinopolitan Creed A.D. 381 (Edinburgh: The Handsell Press, 1981), xi emphasis original. 35 Quoted in A. E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction 2nd Edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 320. 36 A. Torrance, ‘Jesus in Christian Doctrine’, 205-6. 37 A. Torrance, ‘Jesus in Christian Doctrine’, 206. 38 T. F. Torrance, ‘Introduction’, xiv, emphasis original. 39 U. N. S. Jah Al-Hahi, ‘Christian-Muslim Relations: An Islamic Point of View’ in Silsilah Editorial Board (Ed.) Inter-

Religious Dialogue: A Paradox? (Zamboanga City: Silsilah, 1991), 157. 40 Christian Mission and Islamic Da‘wah: Proceedings of the Chambésy Consultation (The Islamic Foundation, 1982),

47-48, quoted in Colin Chapman, Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenge of Islam (Leicester: IVP, 1995),

246-7. 41 Frontiers in Muslim-Christian Encounter (Regnum 1987), 20, quoted in Chapman, Cross and Crescent, 246. 42 John 14:9.

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but Allah.”’43 For Muslims the Christian belief in Jesus Christ is quite intolerable. Likewise,

Christians finds Islamic belief about Jesus quite insufficient.44 Greek Orthodox Archbishop

Methodios explains:

Neither Christianity without the incarnation nor the Creed without the homoousion is

acceptable to us. The first constitutes the essence of our Faith. Christianity without the

incarnation of God is meaningless and useless. Christ without being homoousios to the

Father is neither the Revelation of God nor our Redeemer.45

It is clear, therefore, that Christian and Islamic beliefs about Jesus Christ are simply incompatible.

2. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ

“Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he

was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures…”46

“That they said (in boast), “We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah”;-

but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who

differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for

of a surety they killed him not.”47

Although ‘The New Testament thinkers seldom separate the Cross and the Resurrection; they seldom

think of the sacrifice of Christ without thinking of the triumph of Christ’,48 we shall discuss them

sequentially, starting with the crucifixion. The cross is the quintessential symbol for Christianity and

was central to Jesus’ mission, for he came to give his life as a ransom for many.49 The message of the

cross is central to the New Testament for it represents the redeeming and reconciling work of Jesus

Christ. The apostle Paul states, ‘while we still were sinners Christ died for us.’50 The cross represents

the scandalous claim that God would lower Godself, not only to the point of becoming human, but

much further, to the point of humiliation, crucifixion and death. ‘’Tis mystery all: the Immortal dies’

says Charles Wesley. The two ritual acts central to Christianity, baptism and the eucharist, are both

consciously centred on Jesus’ death. Additionally, the cross represents Christian discipleship, for

Jesus said, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross

daily and follow me’.51

Without the resurrection the message of the cross is not good news but together Jesus’ crucifixion

and resurrection form the centre of the Christian gospel. The apostle Peter said,

This man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,

you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up,

having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.52

43 Sahih Bukhari Vol. 9, Book 93, Number 477, Narrated Masruq,

http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=93&translator=1, accessed October 19, 2006. 44 Newbigin accurately depicts a Christian objection to the Islamic view of Jesus. ‘The figure of Jesus which some of our

non-Christian friends would gladly include in their pantheon [of prophets] is not the Jesus who actually lived here on

earth.’ J. E. L. Newbigin, ‘The Wretchedness and Greatness of the Church’, National Christian Council Review 76

(1956), 472. 45Archbishop Methodios of Thyateira and Great Britain, ‘The Homoousion’ in T. F. Torrance (Ed.), The Incarnation, 11. 46 1 Cor. 15:3-4. 47 Surah 4:157. 48 W. Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter: The Daily Study Bible (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1965), 219. 49 Matt. 20:28. 50 Rom. 5:8. 51 Luke 9:23. 52 Acts 2:23-24.

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It is clear that the resurrection is integral to the gospel, and without it the gospel is no longer good

news, as the apostle Paul explains:

If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith… For if the

dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been

raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins… If only for this life we have hope in

Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.53

Jesus’ resurrection is the basis of both Peter’s gospel and Paul’s. The resurrection of Jesus vindicated

the authority of Jesus’ teachings, ensures the believer’s salvation, and provides the means by which

Jesus serves as the believers High Priest. The resurrection affirms that sinful humanity is not beyond

redemption, ‘the deviance of humanity’s will, with its fateful leaning towards death, has not been

allowed to uncreate what God has created... the resurrection of Christ is a new affirmation of God’s

first decision that Adam should live.’54

By contrast, Nazir-Ali explains that the Qur’an’s attitude to the death of Jesus is very ambiguous. He

interprets the Qur’an to affirm the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus,55 although this is

universally rejected by orthodox Islamic teaching. Nazir-Ali says,

the verse, which has dominated Muslim thinking about the death of Jesus is 4.157…

Muslims have traditionally interpreted this verse to mean that Jesus was not crucified but

that either Judas or Simon of Cyrene was substituted in his place, while he was taken up

alive to heaven. In order to reconcile this view with the other passages in the Qur’an

which speak of Jesus’ death, Muslim commentators have often adopted the view that

although Jesus was taken up alive, his death will occur at his second coming…56

Although Riddell and Cotterell maintain that “the actual meaning of the passage [Surah 4:157] is not

clear”, they say ‘The most obvious meaning is that given by the majority of Muslim scholars: Jesus

was not crucified.’57 Although Muhammad knew that prophets could be rejected and killed,

nevertheless, ‘many Muslims find it hard to believe that a prophet like Jesus could be crucified…

[since] crucifixion was a death cursed in the Old Testament.’58 The control belief behind the Islamic

denial of the crucifixion of Jesus is the nature of divine providence – God would not allow his

prophet to be so humiliated.59

In summary, the Qur’an does not accept that Jesus was crucified, thus irreducibly separating Islam

from Christianity.60 Evidently, since the crucifixion of Jesus is denied so too is the resurrection.

Jesus Christ’s death by crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead forms the centre of the

Christian Gospel. Diametrically opposed to this, the Ahmadi writer Muhammad Zafrullah Khan

correctly perceives the implication of Islamic teaching concerning the crucifixion and resurrection of

Jesus, ‘Once it is established that Jesus did not die on the cross, there was no accursed death, no

53 1 Cor. 15:14-19, NIV. 54 O. O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986),

13-14. 55 M. Nazir-Ali, Islam: A Christian Perspective (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1983), 18-19. Nazir-Ali bases his argument

upon Surah 3:56 and 19:33. G. Parrinder also believes that the Qur’an teaches the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Jesus in

the Qur’an, London: Faber, 1965, 105. 56 Nazir-Ali, Islam, 17. 57 P. G. Riddell and P. Cotterell, Islam in Context: Past, Present, and Future (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 78. 58 Riddell and Cotterell, Islam in Context, 79, cf. Deut. 21:23. 59 This is not to suggest that God would not allow his prophets to be killed, for the Qur’an testifies to this fact, but that he

would not allow them to be crucified. 60 Despite the fact that ‘By the standards of modern historiography the crucifixion of Jesus is one of the most certain

events in past history’, it is consistently denied by Islamic teaching. W. Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity

Today: A Contribution to Dialogue, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, 144.

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bearing of sins of mankind, no resurrection, no ascension and no atonement. The entire structure of

church theology is thereby demolished.’61 Though a little aggressive in tone, Khan’s logic cannot be

faulted. Christian and Islamic beliefs concerning Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection are

irreconcilably contradictory.

3. The Bible

Christians believe that the Bible is a unique witness to the sovereign grace of God at work in the

history of Israel and above all in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Biblical interpretation is

one of theology’s primary tasks and it is a fundamental source for all Christian theology and ethics.

Theology’s dependence upon the Bible is absolute, for as Murray Rae says, ‘Theology is reliant on

apostolic testimony to the fact of God’s Word, conveyed through Scripture and the tradition of the

church. If that conveyance has become thoroughly corrupted, then theology has been cut off from

its only possible foundation.’62 According to New Testament scholar Gordon Fee, ‘the Bible is

God’s word spoken in human words in history.’63 Christians believe that the Bible is divinely

inspired and as such is seen as always relevant in all times and all places to all people. Although

Christian communities differ in their understanding of biblical inspiration, ‘formally it has always

been held and continues to be held by every major Christian tradition that Scripture is to be treated as

“authoritative” in some sense.’64 The Bible is also central to Christian devotion. Emil Brunner said,

‘The Bible is the soil from which all Christian faith grows. For if there were no Bible we should

know nothing of Jesus Christ… Christian faith is faith in Christ, and Christ meets us and speaks to us

in the Bible. Christian faith is Bible faith.’65 The Bible is not only central to Christian theology,

worship and personal devotion, but furthermore, the Bible and the Church are mutually definitive,

for ‘“Scripture” is that text which functions authoritatively within the church, and “church” is that

community which treats Scripture as authoritative for its life and faith, and allows it to shape its own

distinctive identity.’66

The Islamic attitude to the Bible is theoretically positive but actually negative, incorporating both

continuity and discontinuity. Positively, the Qur’an recognises the Tawrat (Torah), Zabur (Psalms)

and the Injil (Gospel) as originally given as Scripture. Surah 3:3 reads, ‘It is He Who sent down to

thee (step by step), in truth, the Book, confirming what went before it; and He sent down the Law (of

Moses) and the Gospel (of Jesus) before this, as a guide to mankind…’ The Qur’an depicts itself as

the last revealed Holy Book, confirming and superseding previous scriptures. However, there are

significant incongruities between the Bible and the Qur’an. These have been explained differently

from within and outside of Islamic faith. Expressing the latter view, Riddell and Cotterell say,

Encountering the Jewish and Christian Scriptures only orally, Muhammad was unable to

distinguish between canonical Scripture and legendary accretions. Through the Qur’an,

both alike were invested with the authority of Islamic scripture, and both Jews and

Christians were not slow in pointing out the discrepancies between their Scriptures and

the Qur’an. This in turn led to the Qur’anic accusation that Jews and Christians had

61 Deliverance From The Cross (Southfields: London Mosque, 1978), 89, quoted in Riddell and Cotterell, Islam in

Context, 80. 62 M. Rae, ‘Prolegomena’ in P. Metzger (Ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology (London & New York: T &

T Clark International, 2005), 18. 63 G. D. Fee, Gospel and Spirit: Issues in New Testament Hermeneutics (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), 30 emphasis

original. 64 T. Hart, ‘Tradition, Authority, and a Christian Approach to the Bible As Scripture’ in Joel B. Green & Max Turner

(Eds.), Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids & Cambridge:

Eerdmans, 2000), 193. 65 E. Brunner, Our Faith (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949), 7. 66 Hart, ‘Tradition’, 193.

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allowed their Scriptures to become corrupt, or worse, had knowingly corrupted them in

favour of their respective theologies…67

Although Islam retains a theoretical belief in inspiration the Old and New Testaments Muslims do

not generally accept the extant versions of either. Kate Zebiri explains, ‘On the basis of several

Qur’anic passages which imply the Jews and Christians forgot, altered or suppressed parts of their

own scriptures, Muslim scholars elaborated the doctrine of tahrif (scriptural alteration or

corruption).’68 Islam sharply distinguishes between the Bible as originally given, which it accepts,

and the Bible extant today, which it largely rejects. Given that there is no textual evidence to support

this dichotomy, the Bible as originally given is effectively non-existent (one could question whether

it ever existed), leaving Muslims unanimous in their rejection of the Bible revered by Christians

worldwide.

In conclusion, the Bible is held by Christians to be sacred, central to Christian theology, ethics and

devotion. Islam theoretically affirms the Bible as originally given but rejects the Bible extant today

believing that it has been irretrievably corrupted and superseded by the Qur’an. Christian and Islamic

beliefs concerning the Bible remain irreconcilable.

4. The Triune God

In his book The Trinity and the Kingdom, Jürgen Moltmann says, ‘The New Testament talks about

God by proclaiming in narrative the relationships of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, which are

relationships of fellowship and are open to the world.’69 That is why Christian theology has maintains

that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Although the New Testament does not contain a formal

Trinitarian theology it does convey a ‘primary trinitarianism’ which underlies and permeates the

apostolic writings.70 Jesus taught his disciples to baptise ‘in the name of the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit.’71 In concluding his second letter to the Corinthian church the apostle Paul writes, ‘The

grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of

you.’72 Christian theology has understood the doctrine of the Trinity as tres personae, una substantia

(Latin West) or one ousia three hypostases (Greek East).

An indispensable constituent of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a high Christology. ‘The

importance of the confession “Jesus is Lord” is not only that Jesus is divine but that God is

Christlike’.73 If one ‘maintains the unity of essence between Christ and God, then’, says Moltmann,

‘not only is Christ understood in divine terms; God is also understood in Christian ones.’ He

continues, ‘The intention and consequence of the doctrine of the Trinity is not only the deification of

Christ; it is even more the Christianization of the concept of God. God cannot be comprehended

without Christ, and Christ cannot be understood without God.’74

The Islamic view of the God of Christianity, like the Islamic view of the person of Jesus and the

Bible, consists of both continuity and discontinuity, affirmation and refutation. Positively, the Qur’an

regards the God of Judaism and Christianity as its own God.

67 Riddell and Cotterell, Islam in Context, 213. 68 K. Zebiri, Muslims and Christians Face to Face (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997), 6. Qur’anic passages include 2:75; 4:46;

5:13, 41. Watt notes that although this doctrine of tahrif was never precisely formulated it did not lessen its usefulness as

a ‘defence’ against Christianity and Judaism. Watt, Islam and Christianity Today, 2. 69 J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993, 46, emphasis

removed. 70 Cf. R. W. Jenson, Systematic Theology Vol. 1: The Triune God (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),

90-4. 71 Matt. 28:19. 72 2 Cor. 13:14. 73 A. M. Ramsey quoted in A. McGrath, Christian Theology, 323. 74 Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, 131-2.

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Say [to the People of the Book], “We believe in the revelation which has come down to

us and in that which came down to you; Our Allah and your Allah is one; and it is to Him

we bow (in Islam).”75

There is partial continuity between Islamic and Christian conceptions of God; for both God creates,

is one, rules, reveals, loves, judges, and forgives.76 However, there is also significant discontinuity,

for Islam also pronounces a decisively negative judgement on the Christian doctrine of God.

O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion… Christ Jesus the son of

Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on

Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers. Say not

“Trinity”: desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah: Glory be to Him: (far

exalted is He) above having a son.77

It has already been noted that Islamic monotheism rejects the incarnation of God in Christ. The

doctrine of tawhid asserts that God is one and there is but one God. To Muhammad the doctrine of

the trinity looked like tritheism, thus apparently conflicting with the doctrine of tawhid. The problem

is further complicated by the fact that Muhammad ‘thought of the Christian Trinity as Father, Mary,

and their son Jesus. (Surah 5:116)’78 Watt maintains that the Qur’an criticises tritheism and not the

doctrine of the Trinity, a criticism with which Christians would concur.79 Whilst Christians want to

distinguish between the Trinity and tritheism, Muslims see no distinction: ‘For Muslims, the Trinity

is nothing other than tritheism. Therefore, Christians are not really monotheists, but ‘associators’,

having committed the sin of shirk, that is, associating other deities with God.’80 In Islam shirk is the

gravest of sins, since ‘Shirk is the fundamental state of being in revolt against God,’ and is ‘the only

sin that God cannot forgive, because it denies Himself, and prevents forgiveness’.81

Belief in the Triune God as depicted in the New Testament presentation of God and central to

Christian orthodoxy is held by Islam to be the only unforgivable sin. On this aspect of faith Christian

and Muslim beliefs could not be more discontinuous.

V. Evaluating Theological Continuity and Discontinuity Between Christianity

and Islam vis-à-vis the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’

Although there are elements of continuity as described above, these are strictly derivative of the

central tenets of the Christian faith. From a Christian theological perspective, Christian and Islamic

dogma are predominantly discontinuous, whereas continuity between the two faiths is central to

Islam’s self-understanding.82 At its heart Christian faith believes that the Triune God has once and for

all time revealed Godself, in person, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as proclaimed

by the apostles in the Bible. This is the lowest denominator behind which it is impossible to go and

accurately retain the designation ‘Christian’. Integral to Islamic faith is the categorical denial of these

75 Surah 29:46. 76 Chapman, Cross and Crescent, 218. 77 Surah 4:171 78 Riddell and Cotterell, Islam in Context, 76. This assumes that Muhammad wrote the Qur’an, an important but separate

issue which I shall not discuss here. Cf. The Quest for the Historical Muhammad trans. & ed. by Ibn Warraq, Amherst,

NY: Prometheus Books, 2000, which argues an alternative to the traditional account. 79 Watt, Islam and Christianity Today, 50. 80 R. Jukko, Trinitarian Theology in Christian-Muslim Encounters (2001), 94-5, quoted in V-M. Kärkkäinen, Trinity and

Religious Pluralism: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Christian Theology of Religions (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 156. 81 C. Glassé, ‘Shirk’, The Concise Encyclopaedia of Islam (London: Stacey International, 1989), 370, emphasis original.

Surah 4:116 – ‘Allah forgiveth not (The sin of) joining other gods with Him; but He forgiveth whom He pleaseth other

sins than this: one who joins other gods with Allah, Hath strayed far, far away (from the right).’ 82 Zebiri rightly says, ‘For Muslims, this element of continuity is integral to their self-definition, while for Christians the

opposite is true: it is difficult to accord validity to Islam without in some sense undermining the finality and the ultimacy

of the revelation they believe they have received in Christ.’ Muslims and Christians Face to Face, 5.

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Christian beliefs. Norman Daniel concludes his book Islam and the West by stating that between

Christianity and Islam ‘there are irreducible differences between non-negotiable doctrines… The

Christian creeds and the Qur’an are simply incompatible and there is no possibility of reconciling the

content of the two faiths, each of which is exclusive, as long as they retain their identities.’83

Christian efforts at emphasising the continuity between these two great faiths therefore focus on

derivative subjects, such as belief in a personal, omnipotent, omniscient creator God, rather than on

Christology and soteriology which enjoy dogmatic and noetic priority. But even on these derivative

subjects, common terminology disguises deep disagreement. As Christina Hitchcock explains,

…both Muslims and Christians would say that God is powerful. Muslims mean by this

that Allah cannot be overcome, hurt, or injured. Christians understand God’s power in

light of Christ’s death and resurrection, which makes it clear that God can experience

pain, sadness, and rejection, while at the same time he can truly overcome all the powers

of death and hell. Even when Muslims and Christians use the same words to define their

deities, those words rarely mean the same thing.84

Similarly, to focus on supposed similarities, such as the divine sending of and reverence for Jesus,

and joint belief in the return of Jesus, is both misleading, and it completely misses the point. It is

misleading because, according to Islam, when Isa (the Islamic Jesus) returns Judaism and

Christianity will be destroyed. Muhammad taught that when Isa returns to the earth, he will destroy

Christianity (‘break the Cross’), and make an end of the legal tolerance of Christians to live under

Islamic rule (‘there will be no jizya’). Scholars interpret this hadith to mean that Isa the Muslim

prophet (i.e. Jesus) will force all Christians to convert to Islam, and followers of all other faiths to

convert to Islam, at the point of the sword.85 It misses the point because, as Alan Torrance writes:

The whole raison d’être of the church is the recognition that Jesus is not simply a good

person, or an inspired prophet, or a person with spiritual insight but, rather, the very

presence of God identifying with humanity and revealing himself to humanity in a

reconciling act of pure and unanticipatable grace.86

Thus the commonality implied by the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is significant from the standpoint of

the phenomenology of religion (Section 2) but superficial from a Christian theological perspective

(Section 3). Whilst stressing similarities is often expedient for political and practical purposes, to

overlook the severity of theological discontinuity is to do an injustice to Islamic87 and/or Christian88

dogma. From a Muslim standpoint Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani states:

In the great debate between Christians and Muslims however, there are areas of

fundamental principles where no amount of logical discussion can bring the two sides

nearer to each other and where therefore the existence of an impasse must be recognised.

Issues like the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ and the Crucifixion so central to Christian

83 N. Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Oxford: Oneworld Classics in Religious Studies, 1997),

quoted in Zebiri, Muslims and Christians Face to Face, 13. 84 Christina Hitchcock, “A living god, a living word: Christian and Muslim revelation in perspective,” Missiology

October 2014 vol. 42 no. 4: 375-385, 382. 85 Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah’s Messenger said, ‘By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, surely (Jesus,) the son of

Maryam (Mary) will shortly descend amongst you (Muslims) and will judge mankind justly by the law of the Qur’an (as

a just ruler); he will break the Cross and kill the pigs and there will be no jizya (i.e. taxation taken from non Muslims).

…’[1] [1]Sahih al-Bukhari. The Book of the Stories of the Prophets. 4:60:3448. See also Sahih Muslim. The Book of

Faith (Kitab al-Iman) 1:1:287. 86 A. Torrance, ‘Jesus in Christian Doctrine’, 200. 87 Such as Nazir-Ali and Parrinder’s claim that the Qur’an in fact confirms the crucifixion of Jesus, despite universal

Islamic denial – see footnote 55 above. 88 Such as Christian scholar D. Pratt who asks Christians to accept Mohammad’s prophethood and the divine inspiration

of the Qur’an – see references 13 and 14 above.

15

beliefs, have no place in the Islamic faith, having been categorically refuted by the

Qur’an, on the authenticity of which there is no discord among Muslims.89

Thus Cardinal Pignedoli, Mahmud ‘Awan, and Seymour Siegel are incorrect in their third-level

usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’, as is Douglas Pratt who comes to similar conclusions. Christianity and

Islam do not share a basic unity of faith, they do not claim the same revelation nor revere exactly the

same historical personalities, for Christians cannot acknowledge Muhammad’s prophethood. Such

assertions are merely statements of faith rather than arguments supported by the evidence. In

summary, Christians and Muslims do not share the same Abrahamic faith. This third-level usage of

‘Abrahamic faiths’, however well intended, must be categorically rejected as inaccurate and

misleading.

Is the God of Islam the same as the God of Christianity? This question, raised in Section 1 by

Polkinghorne, Pignedoli and Pratt, is a colossal subject in its own right which deserves much fuller

treatment than I can here attempt, so I will limit myself to some preliminary observations. Although

Pignedoli and Pratt would respond in the affirmative, this is actually a kind of trick question in which

the simple answer of either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is insufficient. The question needs to be broken down into

several smaller questions. Is the Christian’s idea of God the same as the Muslim’s idea of God? No.

Is there anything in common between the Christian’s idea of God and the Muslim’s idea of God?

Yes. Is it possible to identify the God of Islam and Christianity? Both the Qur’an90 and the late

Pope91, two unlikely allies, say ‘yes’. However, as we have seen, when Christians and Muslims say

God, they do not mean exactly the same thing. Kärkkäinen explains the Christian difficulty as

follows:

The trinitarian doctrine affirms that the only way to know God is through Jesus Christ

and that there is no decisive knowledge of God apart from this Mediator... Therefore,

without leaving trinitarian parameters, it is extremely difficult for a Christian theologian

to affirm an identity between this trinitarian God and the God(s) of other religions.92

For Christians especially it is no simple matter to affirm that Christians and Muslims worship the

same God. For Muslims the qur’anic endorsement (Surah 29:46) removes the formal but not

necessarily the material difficulty.

Even at a second-level usage, ‘Abrahamic faiths’ emphasises the similarities of Christianity and

Islam whilst remaining silent over their differences. As has been discussed, this can be useful and

prudent with certain goals in mind. However, to suggest that Christianity and Islam are in the same

‘family’ of religions, or are different species of the same genus, is to prioritise derivative Christian

doctrine, such as God’s general providential activity in history, over central Christian doctrine, that

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Asking ‘Abrahamic faiths’ to bear increasingly

heavy theological loads proportionately prioritises derivative Christian dogma over the central tenets

of the Christian faith. The incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as witnessed in the Bible

are irreducibly foundational to Christian faith. Thus Newbigin contends that, to use missiologist

Hendrik Kraemer’s favourite phrase, the gospel is ‘sui generis, something that cannot be put into a

class with other events. It cannot be treated as one example of a class of things called “religion”’93 or

89 Sheikh A. Z. Yamani, ‘Foreword’ in Watt, Islam and Christianity Today, ix-x, emphasis added. 90 Although Islam condemns what it perceives as the doctrine of the Trinity in no uncertain terms, the Qur’an also clearly

states that Christians and Muslims worship the same God (Surah 29:46). 91 The Catholic Church has recently made many pronouncements such as the often-quoted statement by the late Pope

John Paul II, ‘As I have often said in other meeting with Muslims, your God and ours is one and the same, and we are

brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham.’ Quoted in Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 156. 92 Kärkkäinen, Trinity and Religious Pluralism, 161. 93 J. E. L. Newbigin, ‘The Christian Faith and the World Religions’ in Geoffrey Wainwright (Ed.), Keeping the Faith:

Essays to Mark the Centenary of Lux Mundi (London: SPCK, 1989), 330.

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one might add, a class of faiths called ‘Abrahamic faiths’. A second-level usage of ‘Abrahamic

faiths’ seeks to incorporate Christian faith into another classification and is therefore problematic, as

Newbigin demonstrates:

The New Testament repeatedly asserts, in one way or another, that the whole fact of

Christ (his incarnation, ministry, death and resurrection) is either a stone of stumbling, to

be discarded, or else the corner stone on which the whole building is itself constructed. It

is not something which can be fitted into another kind of edifice, a structure of belief,

built on another foundation. It is either something to be rejected, or something which

becomes the new starting point for all thought and all action. If the Jesus whom we know

through the apostolic witness is truly the word through whom and for whom all things

have their being, then there cannot exist any more comprehensive frame of thought into

which he could be fitted.94

This ‘lowest common denominator’ aspect of the second-level usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is its

major shortcoming.

The primary difficulty of the first-level usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is that it can be confusing.

Although it does not intend to use the term theologically, the term does not exist in a theological

vacuum and so what is intentionally left empty by writers such as Dickens is filled by the reader

familiar with other uses of the term; hence the confusion. Furthermore, the first-level usage does not

succeed in actually saying anything significant. Before offering conclusions over the term’s utility it

is germane to pause and consider the origin and meaning of the term itself.

VI. ‘Abrahamic Faiths/Religions’ – Origin and Meaning

The utility of ‘Abrahamic faiths’ for inter-faith dialogue has been seriously questioned, albeit

indirectly, by F. E. Peters.95 He observes that according to Surah 2:135 the ‘religion of Abraham’ was

the pristine pre-Jewish and pre-Christian monotheistic religion. ‘Abraham, the Quran pronounced

triumphantly, came before both the Torah and the Gospel (3:55-58). Abraham was, in fact, the first

Muslim, the first submitter to God in absolute monotheism (2:127-134).’96 Far from being a term that

unites these faiths it is actually an assertion of religious supremacy, the will to power. Muhammad’s

claim to practise the ‘religion of Abraham’ did not function as a uniting slogan in the modern

interfaith sense, but from the perspective of Christianity was subversive in claiming to be the only

authentic religious community. According to Islam (Judaism and) Christianity in its original, pristine

form was the pure religion of Abraham, but has since become corrupted. Through the message of

Islam Christians (and Jews) are invited to return to the pure religion of Abraham by becoming

Muslims.

In the Medinan Surahs the Qur’an takes up the task of distinguishing between Muslims from both

Jews and Christians ‘by recourse to the notion of a religion of Abraham, a faith community that

antedated both Judaism and Christianity and of which the Muslims were the most authentic

representatives.’97 This directly contradicts the central Christian claim that God has, once for all,

been definitively revealed in Christ, for it posits an authentic and primal faith that precedes and

qualifies the coming of Jesus. Mark Durie explains, “Thus, according to the Quran, it is Islam, in

contrast to Christianity and Judaism, which is the religion of Abraham.”98 Qur’an 2:135 could not be

94 Newbigin, ‘The Gospel in Today’s Global City’, 12. 95 Indirectly because Peters does not discuss the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ with its current interfaith usage in mind, but

solely with regard to its original Qur’anic usage. But this, of course, has direct implications for contemporary usage. 96 Peters, The Monotheists, 102, emphasis original. 97 Peters, The Monotheists, 122. Peters makes this same point in The Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and

Islam, A New Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 21, 37. 98 http://blog.markdurie.com/2014/01/the-abrahamic-fallacy.html, emphasis original.

http://blog.markdurie.com/2014/01/the-abrahamic-fallacy.html

17

clearer: “And they say: Be Jews or Christians, then ye will be rightly guided. Say (unto them, O

Muhammad): Nay, but (we follow) the religion of Abraham, the upright, and he was not of the

idolaters.”99

Durie continues, “According to this view, the ‘religion of Abraham’ is a kind of code for Islam’s

precedence over all other religions. Islamic da’wa or mission to Christians and Jews involves calling

them to the ‘religion of Abraham’, that is, to Islam.”100 Shamin A. Siddiqi of Flushing, New York

expressed this position in a letter to Daniel Pipes101:

Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were all prophets of Islam. Islam is the common

heritage of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim community of America, and establishing the

Kingdom of God is the joint responsibility of all three Abrahamic faiths. Islam was the

din (faith, way of life) of both Jews and Christians, who later lost it through human

innovations. Now the Muslims want to remind their Jews and Christian brothers and

sisters of their original din. These are the facts of history.102

‘Abrahamic faiths’ is a distinctly Islamic term that subverts historic Judaism and Christianity,

reframes them within an Islamic worldview, asserts Islamic superiority, and thus is the very opposite

of its alleged intended usage. Rather than promoting mutual tolerance and respect, which is one of

the goals of inter-faith dialogue, ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is a loaded term that reinforces the Islamic claim

that “Christianity and Judaism are regarded as distorted derivatives of Islam…”103 and serves the

purpose of Islamic da’wa. So Durie concludes, “It is reasonable to ask whether this is a theological

Trojan horse designed to promote an Islamic worldview of relations between faiths.”104 Far from

being a term that promotes tolerance, inter-religious harmony, and mutual respect, the term

‘Abrahamic faiths’ promotes an uncompromising Islamic intolerance of Judaism and Christianity.

The term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ and its cognates is misleading. Reinforcing the term’s misleading

nature, Aaron Hughes, in the conclusion of his book-length evaluation of the term Abrahamic

Religions, states that it is more an impediment than an expedient to understanding. He writes, “The

previous six chapters have attempted to provide both a history and an analysis of how the category

‘Abrahamic religions’ came to be. I trust that I have made the case that the term is, for all intents and

purposes, meaningless.”105 Whilst in broad agreement with Hughes, the term ‘Abrahamic Faiths’ is

worse than meaningless, because it is literally full of meaning. The term comes from the Qur’an, is a

loaded term that serves the agenda of Islamic da’wa while undermining the authenticity of Judaism

and Christianity.

I have investigated three different levels of the term ‘Abrahamic faiths’ and have rejected both the

second- and third-level meanings. Now I also conclude that a first-level usage of ‘Abrahamic faiths’

– as shorthand for the three major monotheistic faiths – must be rejected as subversive not unifying.

Therefore, I conclude that ‘Abrahamic faiths’ is a term that should be abandoned by scholars except

in its original qur’anic signification.106 Consequently, its usage should also be abandoned in interfaith

activities as a concealed will to power which directly contradicts the spirit of such activities, and a

99 Emphasis added. Cf. “O People of the Scripture! Why will ye argue about Abraham, when the Torah and the Gospel

were not revealed till after him? Have ye then no sense?” (Sura 3:65) 100 http://blog.markdurie.com/2014/01/the-abrahamic-fallacy.html, emphasis original. 101 Daniel Pipes is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the president of the Middle East

Forum, and publisher of its Middle East Quarterly journal. 102 Quoted in http://blog.markdurie.com/2014/01/the-abrahamic-fallacy.html, emphasis original. 103 Mark Durie - http://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_Durie/The_Abrahamic_Fallacy/ 104 Mark Durie - http://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_Durie/The_Abrahamic_Fallacy/ 105 Aaron W. Hughes, Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History (Oxford & New York: OUP, 2012), 141,

emphasis added. 106 All the evidence points to ‘Abrahamic faiths’ and its cognates being originally Qur’anic, and I am unaware of any

evidence of its prior usage.

http://blog.markdurie.com/2014/01/the-abrahamic-fallacy.htmlhttp://blog.markdurie.com/2014/01/the-abrahamic-fallacy.htmlhttp://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_Durie/The_Abrahamic_Fallacy/http://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_Durie/The_Abrahamic_Fallacy/

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more suitable alternative term found. The title of F. E. Peters’ book, The Monotheists, comes readily

to mind as a replacement term that could serve the important purpose of furthering interfaith

dialogue.107

VII. Implications for Christian-Muslim inter-faith dialogue

Pratt rightly observes that ‘Interreligious dialogue, as an intentional and institutionalized activity… is

one of the most notable advances that have occurred in the field of religion during the latter half of

the twentieth century.’108 Remarkable advances have continued into the twenty-first century also.

This is partly because religious (and political) leaders have recognised the importance and necessity

of dialogue. ‘Abrahamic faiths’ has proved to be a useful umbrella term and a powerful symbol of

unity for Jews, Christians and Muslims engaging in inter-religious dialogue, despite its original

Qur’anic meaning. Needless to say, such symbols are desperately needed. Since I have in this essay

scrutinised that term, I shall here offer two considerations concerning the impact upon inter-faith

dialogue.

First, inter-faith dialogue needs to be more scrupulous in its terminology, careful in its claims, and

precise in its articulation, for good will must not be allowed to negate rigorous scholarly exposition.

The otherwise excellent Christian Islamicist W. Montgomery Watt concludes his book Islam and

Christianity Today with the words, ‘the various world religions [need to] accept one another as

fellow-climbers of the cloud covered mountain on whose summit in the mists God dwells unseen.’109

This reveals a total misunderstanding of the central Christian claim that “the Word was made flesh”,

in other words, that the Word God thundered from the top of Mount Sinai came down from the

mountain, ‘became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us.’110 In this spirit Newbigin says,

As a human race we are on a journey and we need to know the road. It is not true that all

roads lead to the top of the same mountain. There are roads which lead over the

precipice. In Christ we have been shown the road. We cannot treat that knowledge as a

private matter for ourselves. It concerns the whole human family.111

The pluralistic approach of Montgomery Watt is not evidentially based but is itself an instance of

religious belief.112 Furthermore, most Muslims and Christians are likely to resist attempts at radical

pluralism.113 Behind pluralism’s popularity in inter-faith dialogue is the assumption that the removal

of exclusivist claims is a necessary condition to fruitful dialogue. On this religion scholars Knitter,

Hellwig, Hick, Kaufman and Morris all concur.114 This is problematic for both Christianity and Islam

which are missionary religions115 who make exclusive truth claims.

107 As with all terms that seek to unite differing beliefs and traditions, that term will be interpreted in diverse ways that

are in accordance with each tradition. These diverse interpretations may even be mutually contradictory and vehemently

opposed to each other, as it the case with Islamic doctrine of tawhid and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. 108 D. Pratt, Rethinking Religion: Exploratory Investigations (ATF Series; 6, Adelaide: ATF Press, 2003), 69. 109 Watt, Islam and Christianity Today, 146. 110 John 1:14. 111 Newbigin, The Gospel In a Pluralist Society, 183. 112 Newbigin says, ‘…the dogma that all religions are the same…if you examine it, you will see that, of course, under the

cloak of neutrality, it is really a particular form of religious belief.’ J. E. L. Newbigin, Christ Our Eternal Contemporary

(Madras: Christian Literature Society of India, 1968), 84. He further asserts, ‘Don’t ask us to believe the dogma that all

religions are really the same because they are not. It is only possible to insist that they are all the same by not looking at

any of them: and that is what is usually done.’ Ibid, 4. 113 Zebiri, Muslims and Christians Face to Face, 13. 114 P. F. Knitter, ‘Religious Diversity, Historical Consciousness, and Christian Theology’ in J. Hick and P. F. Knitter

(Eds.), The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, 36; M. K. Hellwig, ‘The Thrust and Tenor of Our Conversation’ in L. J.

Swidler (Ed.), Death or Dialogue?, 55; Hick, as discussed in Dickens, ‘Frank Conversations’; Gordon D. Kaufman,

‘Religious Diversity, Historical Consciousness, and Christian Theology,’ in J. Hick and P. F. Knitter (Eds.), The Myth of

19

Second, disagreement need not preclude fruitful dialogue; indeed it often provides the occasion of it.

W. T. Dickens is very helpful here. First, he usefully distinguishes between soteriological

exclusivism and religious truth claim exclusivism: both religions affirm the latter but not necessarily

the former.116 Second, drawing an analogy with the political process Dickens shows that fundamental

disagreement in discussion need not preclude it being fruitful; the two are not mutually exclusive. He

writes,

Hick appears to be saying that one will almost certainly grow to hate those with whom

one fundamentally disagrees. An example drawn from the sphere of politics suggests that

is not necessarily so. People frequently disagree with their immediate neighbours over a

range of political issues both take very seriously. Yet they can still respect one another’s

mutual openness to argument, patience, humility, good humour, and commitment to a

political party’s ideals and practices—all while still thinking that they are right and their

neighbour wrong. Not obviously or culpably wrong, but still wrong. If that is so for

political disagreements, why must religious ones necessarily be different? There is

nothing that compels disputants to react with hatred in the face of their mutual

disagreement. Moreover, we know that fruitful dialogue has gone on among those who

do not endorse Hick’s program… To put the point oversimply, I do not think I must be in

fundamental agreement with someone else to respect and learn from her.117

Disagreements are natural when those committed to public truth meet in dialogue. To help facilitate

constructive disagreement in inter-faith dialogue Dickens counsels that participants cultivate the

three virtues of honesty, empathy and humility.118 He rightly encourages participants to be honest

about their agreements and disagreements, to seek to identify imaginatively with the partner’s

existential situation, and to be humble, which ‘is not a justification for timidity… [but] is an antidote

to arrogance.’119 I would add the importance of common action towards common goals such as

justice, development or ecology, which roots inter-faith dialogue in the day-to-day realities of living

in a shared world.

Authentic inter-religious dialogue between Christians and Muslims is essential, as the Vatican has

repeatedly acknowledged.120 Whilst acknowledging a degree of Christian-Muslim theological

continuity and also affirming aspects of fundamental doctrinal dissimilarity the prospects for inter-

faith dialogue are promising indeed.

Christian Uniqueness, 37; P. Morris, ‘The Role of Interfaith Activities in Building Peace’, Otago University Peace

Lecture (Dunedin: Otago University, 2006), 4. 115 ‘…to be a Christian is to believe that Jesus is the Sovereign Lord and Saviour of all mankind. And to believe that, in

any real sense, is to be committed to the Church's mission in all the nations.’ J. E. L. Newbigin, ‘Mission of the Church

to All the Nations: Address Given at the NCC CUSA General Assembly, San Francisco’ (Geneva: WCC Ecumenical

Centre Library, 1960), 2. ‘It is every Muslim’s duty to call all humans to Islam, to invite and warn all humans equally to

enter into the community of faith… Islam is a missionary religion requiring its adherents to offer and teach the divine

message to all humans and to invite them all to join the faith.’ ‘Awan, ‘The Faith Community’, 86. 116 Dickens, ‘Frank Conversations’, 400 117 Dickens, ‘Frank Conversations’, 406. P. Morris concurs. ‘My personal view is that we are much too polite to each

other and we need to raise our real differences alongside out share[d] concerns if we are to develop the levels of trust

necessary for living with our differences. We do share many things but our real and profound differences are just as

important part of our faiths.’ ‘The Role of Interfaith Activities in Building Peace’, 10. 118 Dickens, ‘Frank Conversations’, 413ff. 119 Dickens, ‘Frank Conversations’, 417. 120 F. Gioia (Ed.), Interreligious Dialogue: The Official Teaching of the Catholic Church from the Second Vatican

Council to John Paul II (1963-2005) (Boston: Pauline Press, 2006).